Finding Fortune

This mic is a matchstick, struck to illuminate a revelation too few of us make, and even fewer admit.

I’m lucky.

Like the bullets speeding from the muffled muzzle of this world’s cheat-code handguns always seem to find that bit of skin that scares them off like chasing mercury with a finger.

Like how the majority of my problems are first-world, and those that aren’t still only come in first-world doses.

Like I still find time to complain about trivial shit, but don’t acknowledge the fortune in having someone to listen.

Lucky.

Because any time my luck has turned for a moment, I’ve never been put in a situation I couldn’t survive.

Because I’m allowed more than just surviving.

Because I have a life with honest friends who love me, so even though there ain’t no such thing as a free 

lunch, I can still get some food for thought.

Because I can dissect myself on this stage, hanging my intestines around the mic like tinsel on a tree, and I can feel safe doing it, knowing that I can get past the blood loss – and I wouldn’t have to put myself back together without help.

Because all the world’s a stage, and there is nothing “mere” about being a player upon it.

Because I spent years damning the wall I’d built, locking myself away from honesty, and never took into account that I’ve had access to the brick and mortar from birth.

Because enough people can relate to that, that it’s become cliché.

Because I’m never really alone.

But I’m still afraid to dance where anyone can see.

Still afraid to tell you how I really feel.

Tell you how even the memory of your smile can illuminate the most demon-infested catacombs of my psyche like sunlight actually managing to fill a black hole – that its darkness would swallow no more.

Lucky.

Like it’s not difficult to find the luck in my life. I can see Lucky Charms around every corner before I even get there, like this world spoon-feeds them to me because I eat Lucky Charms for breakfast.

Like finishing dead-last in anything is still leagues ahead of those who chose not, or didn’t get the chance to start in the first place.

So when this world brings the taste of copper to my teeth, when everything I see becomes a fist either poised to strike, or held in solidarity against me, when the chip on my shoulder carries the weight of the world, and I lose the strength to raise my arms in a shield, I can be thankful for the adversity.

Because the damage I’ve taken along the way led me to paths untraveled by my blood’s history.

Like these acid burns are all on the inside of my mouth, and all self-inflicted

Because each sacred scar serves as a reminder of what I can overcome, and the knowledge that has brought me here lives within each sliver of dead tissue like angels squatting in a hostel.

Wax-Man Rhetoric

When the wax-man came
He showed us how brightly we had all burned
A clean, rigid slip of paper passed with machine precision to each hand that he said deserved it
Written upon them was our appointed value to the world
After 8 years when our fire was still elementary, and 4 years in which we burned on high
These values were the fruits of our education.

Some flames were almost extinguished on the spot
Some leapt in height and scorched the ceilings
Many remained just the way they were.
And mine, as always, was blue and flickering.

Sixty six. My number.
My so-called value.

Flip that Sixty Six average and you found my percentile in the ninety-ninth.
I’ve never been a stupid person. I just see with a different clarity.

See…I never burned yellow.
I blazed blue the way I did, and when their golden-flamed curriculum overlapped with my sapphire sparks, we found some happy medium, and it earned me that sixty six in dull ink, dot matrix perforations cutting as sharp as the cookie-cutter comments written below

“Daniel is an extraordinarily bright young candle, but his continuing unwillingness to apply himself is what has resulted in his poor grade”

My continuing unwillingness to change the colour of my flame, like tiger stripes into leopard spots

I knew the presence of his phantom hands early on, felt his frustration in failing to shape forms he found to be functional. Each frenzied flicker I fired, caressing so many elements around me, never focusing on a still flame meant my own wax never softened…he could not sculpt me – simply snap me in pieces, which only served to make me burn brighter for every bit of wicked spine and spindled wick he exposed.

I was not made to fit into holders; to adorn walls as a decorative piece of a matched set.
I was made to burn blue, and flickering – to seek out those other un-golden flames and add my hue and temperament to everyone around me. Let me drip my body’s blood across writing desks that I might be an inspiration.

I flicker and it frightened him that my fire might spread – adding blue to each yellow and making him see green.

He could try to douse me in oceans of Wax-man rhetoric, but he would never realize that the ocean has more in common with my colour than his, so god damn it, bring it on

Sixty six suited me just fine – it was a grade in a reality not in sync with my own.

All he had given me was sixty six reasons to follow my heart down darkened tunnels and emerge in a place that flickers like landscaped wildfire that burns cross-spectrum and thrives in the resulting heat it produces

All he gave me was the confirmation that I was burning beyond his understanding, so bright as to identify with my future.

All he gave me was a double digit acknowledgment that I was better than anything he had to offer.

Brought to you by the Finest in Dentistry

Futility is just an excuse for people who can't admit they want to give up.

She said "I don't mean to burst your bubble", pausing a moment to re-apply her lipstick to the tumbler siphoning gin down her throat. "But isn't it a bit unrealistic to want to be a career artist?"

"I mean, it's nice as a hobby, but you need to face facts and get a real job."

I feel a twitch at the back of my neck. It's the physical reaction I get when my mind stores something for an upcoming poem.

And in most cases...I would let it slide. I'd semi-seclude myself in a happy place and nod away the moments of this person reciting an empirical grocery list of failed artistry. I would confine myself in the bubble that she so convincingly assured me she did not mean to burst.

But this time...this time there's something about her. Something about the certainty in her voice clashing with the uncertainty in her eyes. Something about the wretched-dagger stilettos that look as though they were designed for nothing -but- bubble-bursting. Something about how her teeth are just too...fucking...perfect...

I ask her name.
She tells me.
I then ask the name of the actress portraying her.

"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. What is the name of the actress portraying Shelley?"

She looks at me like my third head has just grown a fourth head.
Clearly she doesn't understand.

"Because, Shelley. This. All this. This is a facade. It is a farce, a fractured figmentation of SOMEONE's concept of reality. See, I know your secret, Shelley. I know that you are an artist as well. You are a damn good actress portraying this caricature of life, and your practiced motions are so subtle, that we would pass them off as ideosyncracies. Notice, how you clear your throat each time you cross your legs. Notice that you swirl that G&T twice, counter-clockwise before sipping, so the ice hitting the side of the glass will be as sharp and loud as it can be. Every part of you is practiced, primped and prepared for the world around you to see and accept.

"The amount of falsehood you exhale out of that prize-winning smile, that is the culmination of what you would deem a 'real' job. And you're right. No amount of blood and spit on a stage can match that level of reality. I just can't say that I want to be a part of it."

"But the best part, Shelley, is that you spit these foundationless concerns, verbal bullets of envy in compassion's clothing, because it's easier than accepting that I have the courage to chase dreams around blind corners, while you, in your arrow-path hallway can see all of the nowhere you're going. You're losing touch with the character you're playing, because you're handing me this advice like you're my mother, and you just want what's best for me. But my mother KNOWS what's best for me. That's why she says "Daniel, I am so proud of you.""

Hopping off my stool, I pay the bartender for Shelley's next round.

I felt I owed her. Being an artist is thirsty work, and here she had just written my next poem for me.

Orpheus in Decline

It was the kind of music that painted the image of eyes running with blood, having dried up the tear ducts long ago.
His was a home of dust and non-life, built with perfect acoustic resonance in a time when the world clambered to hear each note he struck. Cursed melodies now poisoning the air, making willows of the forest surrounding.

Folk would say "Follow the forest until you find the gray leaves. That's where Orpheus lives."

And there he sits, and plays. Growing his melancholy patch. Lyre fused to his hands by mud and grit, strings caked in filth, seeping and infecting stale, slashed fingertips.

Songs soar out like carrion birds, like life-seeking missiles, tongue twitch, flex, spit, and bitter lyrics sharpen the teeth of this now fanged minstrel.

Though keen his voice, his image is a reflection of the Hell he traversed. Face lost in matted hair, fingernails obscene in their hues, cracked and jagged from striking strings - his skeletal body occasionally visible through holes in the rags we would once have called finery.

"Eurydice"

Her name escapes his lips at last, the inevitable destination of his daily ritual.

He no longer weeps or shivers at the sound of those syllables, though he manages with one voice to deliver them with a polyphonic weight

He plays now, forgoing sustenance or any idea of care. He plays as punishment.

He failed her.

When asp's venom took her on their wedding day, he sang sorrow, played truth from his lyre
And the underworld wept for having claimed her
Hades, in unprecedented sympathy granted Orpheus his opportunity to bring her back
"Play your song, little Orpheus. She will follow you above."
The sadistic stipulation stated that were Orpheus to look back and see her before emerging
She would be lost forever.

And when his patience broke, and his head turned back, he gazed upon the last image of her face he would see

And he read disappointment. In his mind, her lips spoke "You have failed me" Before her visage evaporated, and he was left alone.

Orpheus descended into hell to retrieve his love. Only his body made it back out.

She was the dance that made his music necessary
The harmonizing beauty that paired so correctly to his melody

And her absence has left rust on his strings, locked notes out of key

But he plays for her, and will continue to do so until they are reunited

Until then, he simply, slowly crumbles.

Consolidated Public

If you ever find yourself in St. Catharines, Ontario, follow Bunting Rd. to Queenston st. and head east. You'll see some townhouses and a field on your left. You'd hardly believe there used to be a school there.

A Kindergarten to Grade 6 establishment known as Consolidated Public. A building made of short steps for little legs, now a puzzling phantom for old eyes paying a visit.

I swear there was a school there.
I swear 8 years worth of my memories stood encased in red brick, surrounded by paved playground, swingsets and a field that stretched eternal to elementary eyes. Where winter would see the formation of a sheet of ice for students to simply slide across at recess, because who had the time to lace up skates? Where the best day of the year was the day the janitor took a push broom up on the roof, and for a moment, it rained tennis balls.

And suddenly, days became decades, and the student body became incorporeal, ghosts haunting halls torn to rubble and cleaned to make way for new homes. For new families. And I understand that populations need room to grow, but I can't shake the feeling that the evidence of my existence is just gone.

There was a kid with a friendly disposition towards teachers. A kid with a mercurial temperament. A kid who didn't quite fully grasp that a chemical imbalance translated to an emotional one. So this kid had a lot of trouble coping with a lot of things. He was known for crying at every opportunity, for writing endlessly, and for lying his ass off just for the sake of it.

Consequence is a vague notion when you're a kid, so when I came up with stories like "My parents made me play a baseball game at 10pm last night, which is why I'm so tired." I just wanted to be pitied by teachers. I wanted the attention. What I didn't want or expect was an inquisition to be brought down upon my family. This continued for a while, and when my mother was approached by staff and Children's Aid, asking through grave expressions why Daniel said he and his sister would get locked in the laundry room for a week any time they misbehaved, she could only roll her eyes, and ask "How many times are you going to be duped by a fucking 8 year old?"

So I'm sure teachers had some problems with me. I'm sure a lot of them didn't appreciate being told "it's your job" by someone wearing velcro shoes for purposes of practicality, rather than style. But I'm also sure every one of them hoped that I was going to be alright.

It ended with a kid on crutches, wearing a cast that matched the school colours to help mend a broken ankle, delivering a valedictorian address in 1997. And there's a graduation photo to prove it that hangs in a hallway that no longer exists.

The only remaining details of those 8 years lives in a small bachelor flat just above my eyes. Bits and pieces are scattered in other heads, but the entirety lives within me, and me alone. And to a set of guiding spirits who knew me by name, who knew me by my lies both on and off paper, teachers and faculty who may still remember today and wonder if that kid is doing alright

To Brown, Van Geest, Nield, Gosen, Findlay, Harris, Williams, Belzil, Tebbutt, MacMillan, Scarry, Quinland, Gilgunn, Telford - to every one of you who may still hold proof of that red brick structure and the lives within it - Please know that he has grown, learned, loved, risked, lived, and never stopped writing. Know that he has survived the worst the world could throw at him, that his name has been chanted on a national stage, that he has not forgotten you, and that God Damn it, he's alright.

He's alright.

The Dissolving Wall

Come brick it up boys
Come build that wall up ten feet tall
Brick it up, stick it up, crack the sky
Put it up motherfucker, don't be shy now!

It starts with a foundation
Creation-crafting concrete, feet framing flight inhibitors
This is for focus
Shoes cementing your place in society, pay attention
Cause you're no Billy Pilgrim
No, you're still stuck in time, love
We're gonna nail you down with nine-inch diagnoses
And force you to believe you have ADD before you can learn to A-D-D
So please S-U-B-T-R-A-C-T me from this equation
Because it's dividing us all

So here's your wall.
Construction underway, you stay in place, belief in your "disease" your new career
Fear tearing you away, shelter calling, walling faster to escape the world,
Every laugh you hear and assume is directed your way-ward glances and not-so-subtleties-ing
BUILD IT!
Build it past your line of sight and be sure to Van Gogh for your ears, hear no evil, see no evil, but speak it all behind your wall
And they'll call from up above, tell you that they can pharma-see where the problem started
You felt alone, dejected, different
In short - like every teenager ever
But they won't say that!
They'll say CLEAN SLATE!
MEDICATE!
But this prophetic Prozac will make the poetic prosaic
A mosaic of muddled meandering
signifying nothing.

But you're trapped in this wall...so as the pills pour in, it's either swallow or suffocate.

Get nice and comfortable. Wheel in a chair, set up a desk with a computer and stick up those picket-fence photographs; snapshots of everyone else's reality.

Emptying bottles just to fill them with your honest perceptions.
Like all bottles...answers are not to be found in the bottom of these.

TEAR IT DOWN!
Beat your fists until they crack on the concrete, let them know you've got more blood than balance!
Let them know you're NOT just another brick!
Form your rage into a jackhammer and shred this wall you've built until you're inhaling red dust
and when it settles, help everyone else out of theirs.

5 More Minutes

It’s hard to stand sometimes.
When doubt holds you down with such force that your shoulders cry out for the levity the weight of the world can provide.
See, it’s not that I’m afraid to fail. I’m just tired of doing it. And my outlook’s getting bleak.
I keep serving myself sentences that all end in Kurt Cobain exclamation points, or trail off into ellipses…
And I ask myself, when did I get so cynical?
But it’s easier to sleep 5 more minutes than it is to answer that question.
So I’m lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did.
Because I like the illusion that under the sheets, the world goes away.
Under the sheets, I’m safe.
The toy in the bottom of my own private box of cereal. Just begging for somebody to find me.
Filling out tax forms with my favourite blue crayon.
Waxing poetic through a waning spirit.
And I can hear it, the foghorn leading me to shore, but I’m steering starboard to avoid it because disembarking would mean stepping on solid ground that I’m just not ready to handle.
And this fog accepts me as a ghost within it. I could land. I could let myself be found.
But I want 5 more minutes.
There are times I just wanna go home.
I hated my childhood, but I really miss the perks.
Someone used to make sure I got out of bed. I never thanked them for it.
Maybe I’ll do that when I get up.
Maybe I’ll get to work on getting my life together, despite knowing I may just fail again.
Maybe I’ll show everyone that I’ve been worth it, that I haven’t been a waste of time. That when I apply myself, I can accomplish any single fucking thing that I want.
But then, maybe I’ll just count some sheep, go back to sleep, and hope, with my head in the sand, that everything will somehow work out.